1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to engines, pumps, compressors and vacuum apparatus having expansion or compression chambers which perform work relative to a fluid medium.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Expansion or compression chambers are commonly found in engines, pumps, compressors and vacuum apparatus which typically receive a fluid medium into the chamber and perform work relative to that medium in order to accomplish a particular function. For example, in a piston engine, gas and fuel are received in a chamber and ignited where they expand to enlarge the chamber by moving a piston. In an axial flow turbine, expanding gases are introduced into a chamber and exhausted through vanes of a fan where the velocity of the expanding gases is converted into rotary motion to develop the power of a turbine. In the case of a pump/compressor, the fluid is introduced into a chamber and pressurized to move a liquid or compress a gas. A vacuum apparatus works in the opposite manner wherein a gas is drawn into the chamber and the chamber expanded to create a vacuum.
In the past, these processes and apparatus involving an expansible or compressible chamber have suffered from poor efficiency. Certainly a primary reason for this lack of efficiency has been the failure of these processes to fully convert the energy present in the working medium, to power. This is particularly evident in the axial flow gas turbine which uses a fan to extract energy, in the form of pressure and velocity, from a flow of the fluid. On one side of the turbine fan, there is a high velocity and pressure of the fluid while on the opposite side of the fan there is a lower velocity and pressure of fluid. It is the failure of the turbine to fully extract all of the velocity and pressure of the fluid, which results in the relatively poor efficiency of this engine.
The failure to fully exhaust energy in the piston engine develops from the inherent design of the piston chamber which requires that the compression stroke and the expansion stroke have the same volume. Even though there is energy left in the expansion stroke, the piston is limited in its travel and therefore must exhaust the expanding gasses before their energy is fully depleted against the piston. The fact that these piston engines suffer from pre-ignition and pre-detonation is well-known. They also sacrifice considerable efficiency due to the fact that the expansion and exhaust stages occur in sequence. Thus the cycle process is relatively complex.
Piston engines are also well-known to be reciprocating engines in that the pistons are constantly reversing direction. The circular motion present in turbine and rotary engines is inherently balanced and of course easier to couple to an output. While each of these types of engines has certain advantages, there is no engine system in the prior art which combines these advantages of a rotary apparatus, with an ability to use a variety of fuels, minimal moving parts, with inherent valving and timing in a simplified cycle process. More generally, there is no engine, pump, compressor or vacuum apparatus which provides increased efficiency by fully exhausting the energy from a working medium.